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Movies like Journey to the Shore

Key Features:
Ghost story, Grief, Loss, Acceptance, Japanese cinema, Supernatural, Melancholy, Redemption, Spiritual journey, Relationship, Contemplative, Existentialism
Tone:
poetic, restrained, serious
Target Audience:
Art house cinema enthusiasts, Fans of Japanese cinema, Viewers interested in grief and loss
Emotional Arc:
['Sorrow → Acceptance']

Journey to the Shore

2015-09-30
Journey to the Shore Poster - Find Similar Movies

Mizuki's husband Yusuke has been missing for three years. He suddenly comes back home as a ghost and asks Mizuki to go on a trip with him. Their trip consists of visiting the people that helped Yusuke on his previous travel.

Genres
Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Cast
Eri Fukatsu, Tadanobu Asano, Masao Komatsu, Nozomi Muraoka, Tetsuya Chiba, Kaoru Okunuki, Masaaki Akahori, Yumiko Ise, Miho Fukaya, Yo Takahashi
Crew
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Ujita
Rating
6.5(69 votes)
Journey to the ShoreJourney to the Shore
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The Stranger by the Shore

Abandoned after coming out, Shun befriends Mio just before he has to move. Years later, Mio returns with a confession. How will Shun feel?



Maborosi
Maborosi(1995)
7.416

A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.



After Life
7.2

On a cold Monday morning, a group of counselors clock in at an old-fashioned social services office. Their task is to interview the recently deceased, record their personal details, then, over the course of the week, assist them in choosing a single memory to keep for eternity.



Distance
Distance(2001)
6.6

On the third anniversary of a cult's failed chemical attack on Tokyo and their subsequent mass suicide, family members of those affected gather at the cult's former base on the shores of a lake to observe the anniversary of their loved ones' deaths.



Under the Sand
6.6

When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional.



Love Life
Love Life(2022)
7.2

Taeko and her husband, Jirō, are living a peaceful existence with her young son, Keita, when a tragic accident brings the boy's long-lost father, Park, back into her life. To cope with the pain and guilt, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man.



Floating Clouds
7.7

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.



Before We Vanish
6.478

Narumi is on bad terms with her husband, Shinji, when, one day, Shinji goes missing. He comes back a couple of days later, but he seems like a totally different person, and he is now gentle and tender. He goes for a walk every day. Meanwhile, journalist Sakurai covers the story of a family that was brutally murdered, when an unexplained phenomenon takes place. Shinji Kase tells his wife that he came to Earth to invade.



Long Day's Journey into Night

Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget.



Be with You
7.459

Takumi and his six-year-old son, Yuji, haven't come to terms with their wife and mother's death. One day, they meet a woman with an uncanny resemblance to her sheltering from the rain near their home.



Departures
7.8

Daigo, a cellist, is laid off from his orchestra and moves with his wife back to his small hometown where the living is cheaper. Thinking he’s applying for a job at a travel agency he finds he’s being interviewed for work with departures of a more permanent nature – as an undertaker’s assistant.



The Sea of Trees
6.212

In Japan's Aokigahara Forest, a troubled teacher meets a mysterious lost stranger who takes him on a life-changing journey of love and redemption.



Love Letter
7.8

Hiroko attends the memorial service of her fiancé, Itsuki Fujii, who died in a mountain-climbing incident. Although Itsuki's mother says that their old house is gone, Hiroko records the address listed under his name in his yearbook and sends him a letter. Surprisingly, she receives a reply, and discovers it came from his old classmate, a girl who also happens to be called Itsuki Fujii.



Pastoral: To Die in the Country

A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.



Tomie
Tomie(1998)
5.273

Following some trauma in her past that has since been repressed, a young woman is trying to recover her memories with the help of a psychiatrist. During her hypnosis sessions, she repeats the name "Tomie" but is unable to recall where she knows it from. Meanwhile, a police detective is investigating a string of brutal murders, where he also runs across the name "Tomie." How are the two connected?



A Ghost Story
7.083

Recently deceased, a white-sheeted ghost returns to his suburban home to console his bereft wife, only to find that in his spectral state he has become unstuck in time, forced to watch passively as the life he knew and the woman he loves slowly slip away.



Still Walking
7.779

A family gathers together for a commemorative ritual whose nature only gradually becomes clear.



Kikujiro
Kikujiro(1999)
7.498

Brash, loudmouthed and opportunistic, Kikujiro is the unlikely companion for Masao who is determined to see the mother he has never met. The two begin a series of adventures which soon turns out to be a whimsical journey of laughter and tears with a wide array of surprises and unique characters along the way.



Yearning
Yearning(1964)
8.1

War widow Reiko rebuilds and runs the grocery shop in the house of her husband's family. Many years later, their business is threatened by a newly built supermarket and Reiko's in-laws plan to convert their small shop into a supermarket, to her detriment.



House
House(1977)
7.315

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.



Vitalina Varela
6.642

A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life.



Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. Through a series of obstacles and relationships, he is brought unexpectedly closer to both an understanding of himself and of his son.



To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday

David loves his wife, Gillian. Unfortunately, she died two years ago. David deals with his grief by continuing his romance with Gillian during walks with her "ghost" on the beach at night. While David lives in the past, other family problems crop up in the present in the real world....



Retribution
6.465

A detective investigates a series of murders. A possible serial killer might be on a rampage, since they all are in the same vicinity and by the same method, but as the evidence points toward the detective as the prime suspect, a ghost in red follows him, and he begins to question his identity. His realization of what seems to have really happened results in something much more sinister and larger in scope, and it leaves his psyche scarred.



Still the Water
6.8

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.



Child of Kamiari Month

A year after losing her mother, a young girl learns that she must journey across Japan to the annual gathering of gods in the sacred land of Izumo.



Pulse
Pulse(2001)
6.7

In the immense city of Tokyo, the darkness of the afterlife lures some of its inhabitants who are desperately trying to escape the sadness and isolation of the modern world.



The Road Home
7.5

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.



Louise by the Shore

On the last day of summer in a small seaside resort town, an older woman named Louise realizes that the last train has departed without her. She finds herself alone in the town, abandoned by everyone. As the weather turns for the worse and with no one to keep her company, louise must rely on her past to help her survive the present.



The Eel
The Eel(1997)
6.867

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.



Ocean Waves
6.4

At Kichijōji Station, Tokyo, Taku Morisaki glimpses a familiar woman on the platform opposite boarding a train. Later, her photo falls from a shelf as he exits his apartment before flying to Kōchi Prefecture. Picking it up, he looks at it briefly before leaving. As the aeroplane takes off, he narrates the events that brought her into his life...



Demons
Demons(1971)
7.637

Tells the story of the samurai Gengobe, who seeks revenge after falling prey to the schemes of a geisha and her husband.



The Ghost of Yotsuya
6.441

This horror tale adapts the Japanese legend which tells of a man who faces the consequences of betraying his wife in order to acquire wealth and power.



Imprint
Imprint(2006)
6.822

An American journalist travels through 19th-century Japan to find the prostitute he fell in love with but instead learns of the physical and existential horror that befell her after he left.



Kwaidan
Kwaidan(1965)
7.72

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.



Journey Back to Christmas

WWII has ended and Hanna is still grieving over her husband's disappearance. When the Christmas Comet appears for the first time in 70 years, Hanna is caught in a terrible storm and knocked unconscious. When she wakes up, she's in 2016.



Summer Ghost
7.269

An urban legend says that lighting fireworks at an abandoned airfield will beckon the "summer ghost," a spirit that can answer any question. Three teenagers, Tomoya, Aoi, and Ryo, each have their own reason to show up one day. When a ghost named Ayane appears, she reveals she is only visible to those "who are about to touch their death." Compelled by the ghost and her message, Tomoya begins regularly visiting the airfield to uncover the true purpose of her visits.



Okko's Inn
7.2

12-year-old Oriko Seki, who lost her parents in a car accident, ended up living in her grandmother's Onsen Ryokan "Haru no Ya." With the ghost "Uribou" cohabitating with her and all the other odds, she ended up training to be a young female innkeeper. At first, she didn't like the training, but gradually felt her admiration for her title and began to train seriously. Thus, the growth of the young warrior Oriko begins.



Secret Sunshine
7.203

Shin-ae moves to her recently late husband’s hometown. Despite her efforts to settle in this unfamiliar and too-normal place, she finds that she can’t fit in. After a sudden tragedy, Shin-ae turns to Christianity to relieve her pain, but when even this is not permitted, she wages a war against God.



Creepy
Creepy(2016)
6.7

After having narrowly escaped an attempt on his life at the hands of a psychopath, detective inspector Takakura quits active service in the police force and takes up a position as a university lecturer in criminal psychology. But his desire to get to the bottom of criminals’ motives remains, and he does not hesitate long when former colleague Nogami asks him to reopen an old case.



Fireworks
Fireworks(1997)
7.686

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.



Getting Home
7.202

A black comedy about a farmer who tries to bring home the body of his friend, who died far from their town.



The Taste of Tea
7.5

A spell of time in the life of a family in rural Tochigi prefecture. Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project. Uncle Ayano, a successful music producer, is looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sachiko is concerned with why she seems to be followed by a giant version of herself. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes.



Tokyo Twilight
7.682

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.



Return
Return(1985)
6.145

After reading an article about hypnotic regression, a woman whose maternal grandfather died when she was only three years old contacts the hypnotic subject named in the article believing that he is the reincarnation of her grandfather, and hoping that she can learn the truth about how he died.



Cure
Cure(1997)
7.5

A detective starts spiraling out of control when a wave of gruesome murders with seemingly similar bizarre circumstances is sweeping Tokyo.



Asako I & II
6.762

Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality.



After the Rain
7.3

A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.



Her Love Boils Bathwater

A strict, but caring mother has an awakening when she is told she has cancer and it is terminal. She has a few months. She needs to complete her tasks in that short time frame.



Kuroneko
Kuroneko(1968)
7.347

In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.



To the Ends of the Earth

A young Japanese woman named Yoko finds her cautious and insular nature tested when she travels to Uzbekistan to shoot the latest episode of her travel variety show.



My Neighbor Totoro
8.068

Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.



Dreams
Dreams(1990)
7.701

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.



Hello Ghost
7.609

A man's failed suicide attempt enables him to see ghosts, who later keep following him everywhere. It is now up to him to fulfill their wishes to make them go away.



Floating Weeds
7.5

When a theater troupe's master visits his old flame, he unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences.



Ju-On: Black Ghost
5.031

The supernatural grudge manifests itself by way of a strange cyst growing in the body of a young woman, slowly draining all life from her in revenge for... what?



Third Star
7.049

James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a touching and comical adventure dealing with friendship, heroism and love.



Late Autumn
7.7

A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.



Ismael's Ghosts
5.554

Just as the disheveled and alcoholic filmmaker Ismaël embarks on a difficult new film project, his life is sent into a tailspin. His wife Carlotta, presumed dead for 20 years, come crashing back into his life creating chaos in his work and his current romantic relationship with the starry-eyed astronomer Sylvia.



Radiance
Radiance(2017)
6.458

The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.



Warm Water Under a Red Bridge

A down-and-out businessman travels to a seaside town, where he meets a woman with unusual sexual powers.



Millennium Actress
7.8

Documentary filmmaker Genya Tachibana has tracked down the legendary actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who mysteriously vanished at the height of her career. When he presents her with a key she had lost and thought was gone forever, the filmmaker could not have imagined that it would not only unlock the long-held secrets of Chiyoko’s life... but also his own.



Ugetsu
Ugetsu(1953)
8

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.



The End of Summer
7.466

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.



Franz Kafka's a Country Doctor

A hapless country doctor describes with breathless urgency a night-time summons to attend a young patient. Events soon take on a surreal aspect as "unearthly horses" transport him instantaneously to the bedside. The doctor, preoccupied with personal distractions and grievances against those he is employed to care for, fails to find what is revealed to be a vile, fatal wound. He is humiliated by the villagers, who are "always expecting the impossible from the doctor," and doomed to an endless return trip, losing everything.



Cafe Funiculi Funicula

Kazu works at "Funiculi Funicula" cafe. There is a mysterious rumour that if a customer takes a specific seat at the cafe, that customer can travel back to a time of their choice.



Silent Souls
6.4

Miron Alekseevich, director of a paper and pulp mill, goes to bury his wife Tanya in the place where they once spent their honeymoon. He goes not alone, but with a photographer named Stork, to whom he tells touching details of his life with Tanya. The narrative weaves together the memories of the characters, as well as the rituals and beliefs of the Meri people, a small Finnish tribe that once lived in the Northern Volga region and dissolved among the Russians.



Moonlit Winter
6.992

The arrival of an intimate letter prompts a young woman to bring her mother on vacation to a small Japanese town, where someone special resides.



The Castle of Sand
7.32

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.



The Keeping Hours
6.947

A supernatural love story that centers on two parents whose life together falls apart after their son dies. The man, now a successful lawyer, and the woman, now married and an author, get a chance at reconciliation ten years later.



Pee Mak
Pee Mak(2013)
7.2

Mak's friends just want to protect him, but his wife Nak won't let a small thing like her own death get in the way of true love.



A Distant Neighborhood

Thomas, a father in his fifties, returns by chance to the town where he grew up. He collapses and wakes up forty years earlier in the body of his teenage self. Thrown back into his past, Thomas will not only have to re-live his first love, but also try to understand the reasons for his father’s mysterious departure. Can you change the past by living it again?



Good Grief
6.211

When his husband unexpectedly dies, Marc's world shatters, sending him and his two best friends on a soul-searching trip to Paris that reveals some hard truths they each needed to face.



Tokyo Story
8.2

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.



Rhapsody in August
7.2

An elderly Nagasaki hibakusha spends a summer caring for her four grandchildren, whose curiosity about the 1945 bombing stirs buried memories and moral questions. When an American nephew from Hawaii visits, the family confronts grief, guilt, and the possibility of reconciliation across generations.



The Boy and the Heron
7.413

While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."



The Burmese Harp
7.9

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.



The Day He Arrives
6.915

A film director who no longer makes films arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn't show up, he wanders the city aimlessly for three days, grabbing drinks and meeting women, with each day playing out like a version of the last.



Sansho the Bailiff
8.1

In medieval Japan, a woman and her children journey to find the family's patriarch, who was exiled years earlier.



Only Yesterday
7.4

In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.



Reincarnation
6.1

A Japanese actress begins having strange visions and experiences after landing a role in a horror film about a real-life murder spree that took place over forty years ago.



Monday
Monday(2000)
6.9

A simple funeral turns a man's world Topsy turvy. He wakes up in a posh hotel room, totally clueless about how he got there. Slowly, he recalls what happened a day before.



Deep Sea
Deep Sea(2023)
6.94

Shenxiu has felt a deep sadness since her mother left. A storm plunges her into a dreamlike world of swirling colour. Led by the Hyjinx, and joined by inventive underwater chef Nanhe, she embarks on a quest to find solace in the Eye of the Deep Sea.



My Grandfather's Demons

Rosa's life, a highly valued professional, is turned upside down when her grandfather Marcelino dies.



A Man
A Man(2022)
7

Akira works as a lawyer. One day, he meets with his former client Rie, who asks Akira to perform a background check on her late husband Daisuke.



Mind Game
Mind Game(2004)
7.5

Nishi is a loser who has a crush on his childhood girlfriend. After an encounter with the Japanese mafia, he journeys to heaven and back, and ends up trapped in an even more unlikely place.



Black Rain
7.5

Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.



Spirited Away
8.534

A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.



Memories of Matsuko
7.799

While combing through the belongings of his recently deceased aunt, Matsuko, nephew Sho pieces together the crucial events that sank Matsuko's life into a despairing tragedy.



Koko-di Koko-da
5.8

As a couple goes on a trip to find their way back to each other, a sideshow artist and his shady entourage emerge from the woods, terrorizing them, luring them deeper into a maelstrom of psychological terror and humiliating slapstick.



The In Between
7.333

After surviving a car accident that took the life of her boyfriend, a teenage girl believes he's attempting to reconnect with her from the after world.



Cherry Blossoms
7.339

After finding out that her husband, Rudi, has a fatal illness, Trudi Angermeier arranges a trip to Berlin so they can see their children. Of course, the kids don't know the real reason they're visiting -- and the catch is, neither does Rudi...



The Happiness of the Katakuris

The Katakuri family has just opened their guest house in the mountains. Unfortunately their first guest commits suicide and in order to avoid trouble they decide to bury him in the backyard. Things get way more complicated when their second guest, a famous sumo wrestler, dies while having sex with his underage girlfriend and the grave behind the house starts to fill up more and more.



Kaili Blues
7

Chen Sheng goes off in search of his nephew who has been abandoned by his father. Along the way, he encounters numerous people from his past and also those from his future.



Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

Frustrated with her mundane life, a Tokyo office worker becomes obsessed with a fictional movie that she mistakes for a documentary. Fixating on a scene where stolen cash is buried in North Dakota, she travels to America to find it.



Seashore
Seashore(2015)
6.236

A lonely beach on the southernmost coast of Brazil is the scene for two friends, on the brink of adulthood, to explore their understanding of themselves and one another. Martin has been sent by his father to retrieve what appears to be an inheritance-related document from the family of his recently deceased and estranged grandfather. Tomaz accompanies him, seemingly hoping to regain some of their former closeness. The two boys shelter themselves in a glass house, in front of a cold and stormy sea.



On the Beach at Night Alone

Young-hee, an actress reeling in the aftermath of an affair with a married film director, escapes to Hamburg. But when she returns to Korea and meets with friends for drinks, startling confessions emerge.



Shepherd
Shepherd(2021)
5.483

When a deadly secret rots the mind of a grieving widower, the decision to work alone on a deserted island morphs into a terrifying race to save his sanity and his life.



Mr. Blake at Your Service!

Since his wife's death, Andrew Blake is depressed. In an ultimate impetus, he leaves London to go back to France, in the house he met her. This journey through happy days memories won't go as planned.

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